Atriox (Earth-5875)
Atriox is a cunning jiralhanae warlord and mercenary who leads the Banished, a violent terrorist splinter faction of the Covenant. Originally an expendable warrior for the Covenant, he rebelled upon his intended execution, inspiring others to join him and exile. For the next years, his Banished amassed a large amount of power and resources, mainly after the fall of the Covenant and the end of the First Contact War in 2552. By 2560, Atriox became a symbol of resistance and might for even those who did not join his cause. His biggest conflict came in 2565, as he led his forces to Installation 00 in order to acquire control of one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy, only to be pitted against the [[UNSC Spirit of Fire (Earth-5875)|UNSC Spirit of Fire]] and a catastrophic xenomorph outbreak. Biography Early life soldiers in battle.]] Atriox was born in Doisac, in the Covenant, on May 28th, 2510, and when he was old enough he joined the Armada. During the First Contact War, Atriox became respected for his strategic thinking, serving alongside his war-brother Castor as one of the Bloodstars, a group of elite Stalkers, commanded by a First Blade Silent Shadow, tasked with locating Demons. As the war waged on, Atriox's superiors started to use his pack as troops in the front lines, throwing them to die against troops of the UNSC. Forty of his jiralhanae brethren were sent to storm into human bases, which cleared the path for the follow-up attacks, where all of them would die. Sometimes, waves would be constantly sent against entrenched humans even when the battle had already been won by the Covenant, which made it seem like their leaders simply desired for blood no matter who died. Atriox, however, was always to return as the single survivor of these missions. At the Battle of Ursa IV, Atriox was sent alongside thirty-nine members of his pack and assaulted the last human resistance on the planet, under First Sergeant Jessica Kress, and as he had distinguished himself during battle as an uncanny tactical leader, Atriox was placed into the leadership of the pack by the Executioner. There, he led Minors and Captains at the remnants of a western UNSC base, slaughtering the Marines without mercy, but at the cost of his own soldiers. In the end, only two humans survived, Kress and another Marine, who attempted to escape in an M12 Warthog, only for Atriox to bomb it with a fuel rod gun, killing the pilot instantly and sending Jessica away. He approached her, wounded and severely injured, awaiting her have a chance to fight back. She stood up and in a swift movement attempted to pierce his neck with a combat knife, but he simply held it and strangled Kress, breaking her neck and killing the last surviving human in the planet. Uprising during the Battle of Algolis.]] Through the course of the war, Atriox continued losing his brothers, which led to the growth of his resentment towards the Covenant, particularly the Hierarchs. The same held true, and as Atriox won each battle, so did the legend of his name, which inspired other jiralhanae, and even some sangheili. Atriox started disbelieving the Path and the Great Journey, believing it was a lie and the Covenant's genocide against humanity as wanton. During the occupation of Algolis in 2549, Atriox returned as the sole survivor of another massacre. The Executioner, who was leading one of the assaults in northeast of the planet, started to worry about the following Atriox had gathered with his actions. After speaking with the Prophet of Truth through remote communication, the Executioner stated Atriox was supposed to have died long ago, and that his success was proving problematic as some jiralhanae could question their role in the Path. Despite this, Truth believed Atriox could still be a useful warrior and deemed execution only necessary if he proved to be unloyal and unfaithful. While sitting alone upon the carnage of the Covenant's enemies and covered in human blood, Atriox was approached by the Executioner, who commanded him for his deeds and battle ferocity. Atriox rebuffed such claims, saying he did what he was ordered to do. When the sangheili insisted on praising him, Atriox became filled with rage, stating he doubted the jiralhanae were defending the Great Journey, but rather dying for nothing. Further on, he revealed that they were underestimating the humans' powers after witnessing the death of his own warriors, and asking if perhaps absolute loyalty was not the path of righteousness. This led the Executioner to report that Atriox was even more dangerous than they had imagined, which led to the Hierarch demand his death, albeit swiftly, in order to avoid Atriox becoming a martyr. .]] As another deadly battle on Algolis started, Atriox found himself being commanded by other jiralhanae, aside from one. During the conflict, Atriox was being watched by the Executioner through an Eye that flew over the battlefield. After winning the battle, Atriox allowed a surviving Marine to flee for his life. When he did, the jiralhanae followed him to a forest, where he killed the young soldier after proclaiming his hatred for the Covenant and its lies. After doing so, he was faced with the jiralhanae that stared at him early on, who challenged Atriox for blasphemy after having heard he did not believe in the one true Path. Seeing his own warrior was beyond saving, Atriox drew his gravity hammer and challenged his opponent to a duel. Despite the fierce battle, Atriox was able to stand victorious, blowing the head of the enemy jiralhanae with his hammer. After returning to the Covenant camp, he was met with the Executioner and seven sangheili Zealots, prepared to slay him. The Executioner used the death of the loyalist jiralhanae as a pretext for killing him, and as Atriox surrended his hammer and dropped to his knees, seemingly accepted his penalty, the sangheili warrior drew his energy sword. Before his execution, Atriox did not hold back, and defended his actions as self-defense. As the Executioner gave the final blow, Atriox held his sword, stabbing him in the chest and killing him instantly. The surrounding sangheili took their swords and prepared to kill Atriox, but the surrounding jiralhanae, led by the warrior Decimus, joined Atriox and slaughtered the sangheili attackers. Raising the sword of his fallen enemy, Atriox gave a battle cry, pledging the jiralhanae to join him, giving birth to the Banished. Guerrilla , as observed by ODST by Sergeant Brenda Wright.]] Reduced to an enemy of the Covenant, Atriox and his followers resorted to self-reliance in order to survive. Even though most of his followers were jiralhanae, Atriox also gained numerous unggoy, and even sangheili allies, who desired to escape from the tyranny of the Covenant and stop fighting in a religious war they did not believe in. The Banished started to raid Covenant territories in order to salvage goods and equipment for both their survival and their development, also moving towards the UNSC. In January 2550, the Banished raided the UNSC's Carter Guard Armory, where an ODST personally recorded Atriox raiding the base and killing all of its personnel, including herself. This footage was passed to the Office of Naval Intelligence, which gained its first look at Atriox and the Banished after having kidnapped an unggoy who served him. ONI quickly noticed the uniqueness of the attack duo to the fact the Covenant never stole UNSC technology, as opposed to the Banished who took everything they could salvage. Later the same year, the Banished attacked a Covenant training camp, killing all of its inhabitants. When UNSC Marines were deployed to the area, all they could found were numerous bodies of sangheili and jiralhanae warriors. By November of the same year, Covenant warriors found many settlements and cities of their own in small Covenant worlds to be completely ruined and desolate, tracking them down to the Banished. After ONI failed to execute Operation SLOW DIVE as the Covenant outpost they sought to take down had already been destroyed by the Banished, ONI theorized that the breakaway faction utilized guerilla tactics and warfare to coordinate their defenses against the Covenant. In 2551, Atriox commanded a ''CCS''-class battlecruiser when numerous hull breaches caused rapid decompression on his ship. Atriox was able to survive by grabbing one of his own jiralhanae warriors in a vacuum suit and hurl him at the hole to save the rest of the crew. Angered by having to kill one of his own, Atriox ordered Decimus to investigate the breaching, tracking down to their newest chief engineer. When Atriox discovered it, he approached the engineer, who attempted to excuse himself, but Atriox detected he was nervous and lying, and so he strangled his former ally to death. After losing one of his most important assets, the Warmaster ordered Decimus to seek a better replacement. Ambush on Otraak Drones under the control of Sig Raan.]] Decimus' suggested replacement was Sig Raan, a t'vaoan kig-yar weapons developer for the Covenant, who lived on the Covenant world Otraak. Atriox accepted the proposal, seeing her possible inclusion as a major boost for the Banished. Upon landing, Decimus and his jiralhanae warriors were ambushed by numerous unggoy warriors under Sig Raan's command, but she dismissed them. Once the jiralhanae entered, Sig Raan showed them a device that was able to mimic the sonic and pheromonal signals emitted by a yanme'e Queen to her drones and warriors. As Decimus attempted to convince her to join the Banished, Raan betrayed them, ordering her yanme'e army to attack the jiralhanae. As the yanme'e swarmed the jiralhanae, Atriox appeared and warned Raan that he expected her treachery and had only sent his men to steal her technology. He roamed to attack, killing many yanme'e with his Chainbreaker. Sig Raan attempted to escape with an yanme'e, but her Drone was shot in the head by Decimus with a Type-25 plasma pistol, sending the kig-yar to her death. Afterwards, Decimus showed interest in using Raan's technology to control their own yanme'e warriors, but Atriox snatched the device from Decimus' hand and destroyed it, explaining that the Banished would be different from the Covenant and never use its warriors as expendable tools, aspiring a higher standard for themselves. He said he wished people would follow them out of their own desire and out of his own cunning, not threats. Seizing opportunities After the fall of the Covenant in December 2552, Atriox successfully amassed more power and resources to expand the Banished's strength, giving them a massive advantage over the numerous splinter factions that formed from the Covenant with the end of the First Contact War. The fall of the Covenant also allowed the Banished to retrieve much of the vehicles, weapons, and ships that the hegemony had lost during the end of the conflict and the resulting Great Schism. Let 'Volir and the crew of the ''Enduring Conviction'' swearing their loyalty to Atriox and the Banished.]] In 2553, Atriox led the ''SDV''-class heavy corvette ''Elegy's Lament'', when he was tracked down by a squad of Silent Shadow sangheili assassins, led by Resa 'Azavayl, who infiltrated the ship and killed many of his jiralhanae warriors while cloaked. When they arrived at the bridge, where Atriox was sitting, the Warmaster sniffed their presence and taunted them to reveal themselves. Before they attacked, Atriox proposed the Silent Shadow to join the Banished, mentioning he was not involved in the Great Schism or the betrayal and massacre against the sangheili, leading the warriors to see him as an "other". Atriox then mocked Resa for his strong adherence in the Path, which he called outdated, even after he was betrayed by the Hierarchs. 'Azavayl was not convinced and rushed to attack Atriox, before he himself was murdered by his own warriors, who decided to give up their quest to join the Banished. This shift in mentality made other sangheili feel welcome to join the Banished, which did happen. observe as the Banished forces salvage a human city.]] Not long after, Atriox gained the Banished's most powerful asset in the form of the ''CAS''-class assault carrier ''Enduring Conviction'', alongside its sangheili crew, led by Shipmaster Let 'Volir. Atriox was able to acquire the sangheili's loyalty after willingly giving himself up to the Shipmaster and the forces under Fleetmaster Arkad Nar 'Kulul. He was taken to the Enduring Conviction, where the jiralhanae asked for 'Volir's attention. There, Atriox appealed to the fading faith of 'Volir, as well as his devotion and care for the ship's crew, and offered him a position in the Banished in trade of fuel and his loyalty. 'Volir accepted the offer, and twelve hours later, the Conviction broke from 'Kulul's formation and jumped to slipspace. The ship then escaped towards Asket IV, a joint-Swords of Sanghelios/UNSC colony which possessed a hydro-processing plant. Once they landed, they killed all the forces on the planet and took it for themselves in order to fuel the Conviction, where Let and his crew swore loyalty to Atriox and the Banished. The Warmaster would supply them forever in trade of the sangheili's assets. By the end of 2553, atriox secured the loyalty of many lekgolo and huragok, and in a few months they were able to sack and destroy an entire human city for resources. Nerxus X was used as a temporary stronghold of the Banished before they moved to Shamsa, where they established many supply hubs. By 2558, Atriox had completely disappeared from the radar of ONI, and only few human mercenaries and privateers heard or knew about him and his group. Second Battle of Installation 00 at the Henry Lamb Research Outpost.]] Following the Invasion of Earth by the Reapers in October 2564, the Excession that linked Earth to Installation 00 was shut down duo to the Reapers' electromagnetic pulse. Atriox and the Banished arrived on the installation one month later aboard the Enduring Conviction. Upon their arrival, Atriox had Decimus lead the salvaging team on the Ark, with the jiralhanae massacring the entire sangheili-human research team on the surface. In two days, all personnel at the Ark was killed by the Banished, which took complete control over the installation. There, the Banished constructed a new Halo ring, and started mining for resources on the Ark, while at the same time acquiring complete control over its portal network. The [[UNSC Spirit of Fire (Earth-5875)|UNSC Spirit of Fire]], which had been missing in space for 28 years, had mysteriously arrived on the Ark on March 28th, 2565. The crew of the ship sent its SPARTAN-II Red Team to investigate the lack of communications on the surface, reaching the Henry Lamb Research Outpost, where Atriox and his warriors were hiding. Once they got there, Atriox easily outmatched the three, barely cryo-awoken SPARTANs in hand-to-hand combat, although they were able to retrieve the Auton synthetic Isabel. After nearly killing Douglas-042, Atriox gave them a chance to escape and ordered his warriors to go after them. following the loss of the ''Enduring Conviction''.]] After the SPARTANs escaped the station, Decimus personally appeared with dozens of his own men to defend his mining operations, but they were taken out by human forces, and Decimus then retreated. As soon as Decimus heard of the Spirit of Fire's capabilities, he ordered Decimus to command all Banished outposts within the Ark to warn him about UNSC assaults, and soon after, Captain James Cutter discovered that Atriox was able to take a Cartographer that would help him locate all systems within the installation. Decimus was killed by Red Team while defending one of the systems, leading Atriox to order the 'Volir to fire with the Enduring Conviction at the Spirit of Fire. But before they could act, the humans were able to use a forerunner particle cannon that fired and immobilized the carrier, disabling its energy shields. Despite Atriox's efforts to send as many troops as he could to take the down the UNSC forces, Jerome-092 and Isabel managed to board the Enduring Conviction and use its energy projector to provoke local Sentinels. The thousands of Sentinels flew towards the Conviction and cut the ship in half, killing many of the Banished's soldiers. The pieces fell into the Ark and killed even more warriors, as Atriox and Let 'Volir watched. He then ordered 'Volir to take his surviving warriors and get on the Halo ring to retrieve it from the humans. The Banished started to ferry to the Halo through access points devised by the Sentinels, and they established a fortress near the UNSC settlements, where Atriox directly contacted Captain James Cutter, where the Warmaster revealed he was impressed with the human's capability, and proposed the crew of the Spirit of Fire to join them. When Cutter defied Atriox's proposal, he claimed the captain had destined his crew to doom, sending all of his weapons, vehicles and warriors to stop Professor Ellen Anders from reaching the Halo's Control Room. He was unsuccessful, and the Professor was pulled to slipspace to the Soell system alongside the ring, pulling a section of the ring into space, and killing thousands of Banished soldiers. With his dream destroyed in five days, Atriox slammed his fist on a holotable, before he approached the edge of a cliff and observed his remaining forces. Atriox's war against the Spirit of Fire would continue for months. Awakening of the xenomorphs after he disobeyed his orders.]]After three months, Atriox' forces had severely diminished and he wasn't as closing to killing the humans as expected. He sent two jiralhanae siblings, Voridus and Pavium, to visit the wreckage of ''High Charity'' and salvage all that they could, but he warned them to not go inside the city. Voridus chose to ignore the warning, hoping to prove himself to Atriox, which resulted into the Banished's first contact with the xenomorphs, which had survived the detonation of High Charity and the firing of Installation 04B in 2552. The xenomorphs proceeded to massacre the Banished's forces, which forced Atriox to abandon his fortifications across the Ark to focus on destroying the xenomorphs, which were a much dangerous threat. During the conflict, Atriox kept in contact with the siblings, showing his anger towards the situation. After the Keymind was killed by the combined forces of Pavium, Voridus, and their surviving jiralhanae, Atriox arrived on the battlefield, protected by numerous bodyguards. He approached Voridus, and reprimanded the young jiralhanae, reminding him who was leading who. At the same time, a Facehugger jumped at Atriox in an attempt to impregnate him, but he simply caught it mid-air and crushed it. He then ordered the siblings to clean up the bodies so that the xenomorphs could not return. Personality A vicious, cunning and brilliant warrior, Atriox made a name for himself as a skilled warlord and charismatic leader with control over the Banished. Through his tenacity and defiance, he was able to rise to power and create his own empire from the tyranny of the Covenant. Atriox is ambitious, and he desire to hold power for its own sake rather than for ulterior or bigger motives. He is versatile and intelligent, being able re-purpose much of the technology used by the Covenant and give them his own spin on them, deeply reflective of the brutality of jiralhanae culture, which enabled the Banished to rise above other Covenant splinter factions. An atheist, he views religion and faith as obsolete and abhors the reverence on the forerunners, the Path, and the Great Journey, seeing them as mere tools of manipulations, and as a result he has no problem in "violating" forerunner sites and relics if they could be useful for his goals. He holds a pragmatic view of warfare, understanding the importance of supporting his warriors and infrastructures, which is skewed over his tenacious and unconventional strategies, differently from the Covenant's imitative nature - something which would be considered heretical under the war doctrines of the Covenant. After besting SPARTAN-II Red Team, Atriox exposed them as only humans as opposed to the Covenant's mystification over them as "Demons", severely boosting the morale and confidence of his own men. As he experienced the cruelty of the Covenant first-handed, he harbored hate for the empire and all of its other remnants, believing himself and the Banished to be the only possible alliance to success. He focuses on being pragmatic and gathering power to always increase his Banished, being apathetic to brutality. Unlike most jiralhanae, Atriox holds no hatred or animosity towards the sangheili, and does not care for the continuing Great Schism or the First Contact War against humanity beforehand. He believes the jiralhanae and the sangheili could be much strong together than separate, as well as other species. Duo to his tenure in the Covenant, Atriox speaks fluent Digom. Equipment Atriox uses a unique black and white armor of UNSC origin, partially constructed with salvaged pieces he found, such as an ODST chestplate. In combat, he uses a power gauntlet which artificially enhances his already immense natural strength, as well as a customized energy mace known as Chainbreaker, which he built of the remnants of a Type-2 gravity hammer. 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